Ex-Detainees Sue Companies for Their Role in Abuse Case

By KATE ZERNIKE

The New York Times

Published: June 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 9 - Lawyers representing former detainees who say they were
sexually humiliated, beaten, and tortured at Abu Ghraib prison said Wednesday
that they have sued two private companies that provided translators and
interrogators at the prison.

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for
Constitutional Rights and a Philadelphia law firm, accuses the Titan Corporation
and CACI International Inc. of conspiring to abuse detainees in order to secure
more contracts from the United States government.

It alleges that the
two companies and three men who worked for them directed and participated in
illegal conduct at the prison to squeeze information from detainees in an effort
to prove that the companies should be awarded more contracts.

The
plaintiffs say they were hooded, raped, stripped naked and kept in isolation,
and subjected to repeated beatings with chains and boots.

Two of the men,
Stephen A. Stefanowicz and John B. Israel, worked as interrogators for CACI; a
third, Adel L. Nakhla, was a translator for Titan.

"It is patently clear
that these corporations saw an opportunity to build their businesses by proving
they could extract information from detainees in Iraq, by any means necessary,"
Susan Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker, &
Rhoads, said in a statement.

A Titan spokesman, Ralph Williams, called the
lawsuit "frivolous."

Jody Brown, a CACI spokeswoman, said the allegations
were "irresponsible and malicious" and noted that no ch arges had been filed
against any of the company's employees.

"As we have said before, we do not
condone, tolerate or endorse any illegal behavior by our employees in any
circumstance or at any time," she said in a statement. "We will act forcefully
if the evidence shows that any of our employees acted improperly. But we will
not rush to judgment on the basis of slander, distortion, speculation, innuendo,
partial reports or incomplete investigations."